In response to the high-speed network applications beyond Ethernet, the working groups of Telecommunication Industry Associations (TIA) of U.S.A. published Category 6 standards (ANSI/TIA/EIA-568-B.2-1) in June of 2000. The category 6 standards, besides expanding from 100 MHz of Category 5 standards to 200 MHz, also require the performance to be enhanced at least 25% over the Category 5 standards. Some performance test frequency for Category 6 even reaches 250 MHz. The biggest difference between the Category 6 and Category 5 standards is the performance improvement on crosstalk and return loss. For the new generation of full duplex high-speed network applications, good return loss performance is very important. The crosstalk performance is an important factor to control frequency bandwidth. Although 100 Mbps is still the main stream of the present network configurations, the Category 6 standards will be more desirable to meet future requirements.
The standards set forth above not merely target high-speed communication wires. In order to maintain high-speed transmission performance in the high-speed communication network systems, the peripheral equipment related to the high-speed communication wires, especially telecommunication connection elements (such as RJ-45 type plug and jack) also require a corresponding design. There are many types of connectors. The patch plug is one of them. Most connector products now on the market merely focus on the improvement of the jack portion. Very few focus on the improvement of the plug portion. Hence it often happens that the high-speed cables and jacks conform to the Category 6 standards, but the plug portions have too much interference. As a result, the total system still can reach only the Category 5 standards or even lower.
To remedy this problem, U.S. Pat. No. 6,062,895 discloses a patch plug with contact blades, that has pairs of spaced electrical conductors close to each other so that the interval is shrunk and is moved away from the neighboring electrical conductors to reduce crosstalk and interference of telecommunication signals. However, such a compensation scheme still cannot reach the EIA/TIA Category 6 standards.